Asters
by ekourege
Summary: In which Rin doesn't escape that Gehenna Gate.
1. Where's the Kurikara, Rin?

Title: Asters  
Chapter: 1/?  
Fandom: Blue Exorcist

Pairings: N/A, gen.

Summary: In which Rin doesn't escape that Gehenna Gate.

* * *

Welcome, all, to the Trauma Zone. Rin has a bad time, but his trials are only beginning.

Honestly, I hadn't meant to post this until the fic was totally completed, but I jumped the gun and got excited, so here we are.

Warnings for: Implied torture (off-screen), aftermath of torture, physical violence, cremation with malicious intent, kidnapping, abuse, all the standard stuff for a "Rin gets dragged to hell but Satan is still a malicious dick" fic. Also, Shiro dies (spoilers for... chapter 1 ig!). I would like to point out that while this fic is angsty, it's not "edgy dark": Rin doesn't suffer just for the "fun" of it.

* * *

His cheeks still stung.

He was used to pain, used to broken skin and bloody lips, but something about _Shiro_ being the cause of it - causing him pain beyond rough noogies - seemed to solidify the burn of betrayal that pierced something deep inside of him, something hidden and fragile. There was a sword being shoved into his hands, the monks screaming and throwing salt and flipping open their bibles, Shiro was tugging him up and along, but Rin could barely process anything other than the wetness collecting in his eyes and the sword; like hot iron on his skin, branding him as a demon.

And then- and then his word is swallowed by blue fire and mocking laughter.

The monks are on the floor, limp and defeated, utterly helpless in the face of Satan himself.

Satan, who's currently possessing Shiro, and _apparently_ Rin's biological father.

His entire life is a damned lie. Everything he is, everything he's ever known - ever been told - was a lie. And now, now that the truth came back to terrorize them all, he can only watch as the lie he's been living, paper-thin and doomed to fall apart, buckles and tears under blue fire and demonic might.

In gushing, damning grief, Rin watches his lonely and directionless, but ultimately peaceful, existence burn away to nothing.

The final pillar falls, and Rin, pushed into a portal that clung and screamed and _begged-_ could do no more than catch the dying pieces, his tears now fully formed. Horrified and shocked, and fervently wishing it was all a dream.

His legs are caught in the gate. Rin yanks his legs up in an effort to free himself, but he only sinks deeper, like an explorer caught in quicksand - the ones he used to see in old cartoons. The Kurikara, the sword that his demon powers are sealed into - he's a _demon!_ He's a demon they were _right_ \- was tossed away from him, lying on the floor across the room, cold and useless.

There are blue flames, not the ones who hurt him and his family - though they might as well be - flickering and sputtering around him, trying to weasel their way into existence and falling short, but only just.

Rin screams and screams and _screams_ as he clutches at Shiro, his clammy fingers coated in the blood of his _dad - He's so sorry, please, no_ \- but he can't hear his own broken voice over the sound of crackling fire and ringing laughter. His fingers skitter over the edges of the gate, sunk into it up to his chest, but he just sinks deeper and deeper into the portal.

Rin writhes as he cries, shaking head back and forth, even though there's no hope of getting free. Only the tip of his head and his forearm can be seen from outside of the gate, and Rin's _drowning_ , biting his lips with sharpened teeth so hard he punctures them, holding the last of his oxygen in for as long as possible. He presses his eyes shut, and wishes for the end to come quickly, instead of torturing him like this.

There's a yanking sensation and then the substance releases Rin from its killing grip, the air knocked from his lungs as he topples onto hard stone. He wheezes, his eyes still pressed firmly shut.

Satan's voice rings out, reverberating and sounding of destruction and bright blue fire, but the voice is somehow… more real, less like a demonic spirit and more a physical entity. The thought makes Rin flinch slightly. "Restrain him. He's just gotten here; we can't have him running away now, can we?"

Rin's eyes fly open, and rough hands are on him, pulling and twisting and it's all he can do to struggle in their grip. He's pulled up onto his knees, and his arms ache from where they've been twisted behind his back, claws sinking into the soft flesh of Rin's arms.

Rin snarls up at Satan, who stares down at him with a facsimile of a real expression. His eyes say nothing, and looking into them only garners an impression of anger and yawning emptiness. But, instead of hitting or reprimanding, Satan _laughs._ Satan, from the moment Rin had encountered him, had laughed and laughed and _laughed_ at Rin, at his pain, his fear, his tears. Like- like it was a fucking _joke._

" _Bastard!_ " Rin spits, lunging for the demon king, only to be yanked back, his arms starting to bleed as clawed fingers puncture his skin. His struggle starts anew, the servants restraining Rin from attempting to maul Satan. Rin spits and snarls and curses him, thrashing about wildly. He can barely see past his own anger, vision shaking as a visceral rage pumps through his veins, causing his lips to curl and bare sharpened incisors.

Rin's angered, defiant expression becomes one of horror as Satan snaps a finger, another servant appearing out of nowhere to steal Shiro's quickly cooling body from Rin. Rin's face pales, the blood draining from his face.

"Hey- What're yo- _No!_ Don't touch him!" Rin screeches, the sound panicked and raw. Satan just chuckles, and Rin is writhing, trying to wriggle out of the Iron grip holding him hostage, but can do no more as Shiro - _his Dad!_ \- is dragged further and further away from him.

Satan turns his back on Rin, leisurely beginning to walk down the winding dirt path. Rin is dragged along after him, rocks and pebbles biting at his exposed skin and attempting to tear the fabric of his clothing. Rin strains and grunts and tries to wiggle his way out, but each attempt is met with swift violence, a fist slamming into Rin's cheek or a pointed kick to the ribs. Rin can't help but whimper, body limp as he deals with the new and sharp aches decorating his body and leaving him fraught with pain.

Satan doesn't turn back to look at Rin, not even once.

* * *

Being a prisoner on display, one whose defeat was to be broadcast as he was dragged through the castle, was one of the most humiliating experiences Rin had ever been through. Shame and a keen sense of vulnerability struck him as he was forced down winding hallways, past the deadened eyes of the castles' servants, their indifferent, sometimes vaguely contemptful gazes like a laser burning into his skin. The front of the castle, leading to the throne room, was draped in vivid reds and vibrant blues, depicting wealth, rage, and the signature blue flames Satan possessed. The further in Rin went, however, the less decorum there was, transferring from bright rugs to cold stone floors.

There were more demons in this area, too. They came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, but there was a startling difference between them. They seemed to come in two groups. One group, smaller in number it seemed, passed by Rin and the guards with bloodied weapons of all kinds. The other group, however, tended to be emaciated and bloodied. The group with weapons took hulking, single-minded steps, while the group without walked as quietly as they could possibly achieve, steps light, sometimes uncoordinated. The group without wouldn't look anywhere other than the ground, and their faces only demonstrated a withdrawn, blank visage - as if the soul had been sucked out of them.

Finally, Rin is lead in front of a steel door. The door is wide and rusted, solid but worn in. It appeared more like an item out of one of those post-apocalyptic games Rin saw in stores, for consoles he couldn't afford, than the entrance to a real place.

(He'd always hoped that he could buy one for him and Yukio, but he could never keep a job long enough to scrounge up the money needed for one.)

The door was the farthest thing from ornate: simple in design and functionality, undecorated even with the rust coating it. There was a small rectangle cut from the bottom of the door, looking to be nearly a foot in length but only a couple inches in height. It wasn't big enough for Rin, himself, to squeeze through - not even close - but he could probably fit his hands through it if he tried hard enough. What his eyes were really glued on, however, were the thick streaks of curdled brown and murky red soaked into the stone in front of the door, as if there had been so much blood pooled on the inside of the door that it had leaked out, coating dirty stone in old blood.

Rin couldn't suppress the shudder that ran through him at the sight - he didn't even want to think about where all that blood had come from.

The door opens with a heavy creak, but before Rin can gather his bearings, he's hauled up by his forearms and tossed inside the room. Rin yelps as he tumbles onto the filthy stone floor of the cell in a tangle of limbs, scrambling to his feet just as the heavy door is shut in his face. It makes Rin's lip curl, and the teen growls, rushing at the door and pounding on it, demanding to be let out, strings of expletives uttered only to stone cold silence. It only makes Rin yell louder, harder, until his voice gave out under the strain of his rage and grief, his voice that spoke of fear and desperation in rising notes and jerky pauses in speech.

The silence is what gets him, what extinguishes Rin's anger and makes his flickering flames wink out. Rin's face feels hot, contorting, tightening in his budding despair. He steps off and away from the door as if it'd burned him, backing himself into a corner and sliding down onto the bloodied floor, uncaring of the dirt and grime.

The blood was everywhere, and somehow, Rin knew that _his_ blood would be joining the splatters of tortured red and dark browns soon.

Rin just- he just wants to go _home._ He wants Shiro back, alive and laughing heartily, to be back at their shared dinner table at the monastery with the monks; with a chiding Yukio, remorseful at having such a problem child for a twin brother but digging into the food Rin made anyway.

 _Yukio._

He hadn't thought about Yukio until now. Rin wonders, a sense of terror pushing at his throat and nearly making him gag, whether anything of the monastery was left after the fire. He doubts it, but he was too taken up with being sucked into a hell portal to care about the state of the house.

' _What about Yukio?'_ his mind chants, the thought jabbing toxic fingers into his skull, between his spine, plucking at the tendons in his ankles - caught on a conjured image of Yukio's horrified face, of Yukio, bright and talented, face awash with grief and looking down at not one, but _two_ tombstones. One for their dad and… one for Rin.

Rin brings his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. He tucks his head into the space between his arms and his knees and tries not to be loud as tears drip from his eyes, hot and heavy.

* * *

There are ashes in the air, fluttering and dancing along invisible currents.

Satan stands, watching as the remains of the paladin crumble under the strength of his flames. Bones, usually strong enough to withstand cremation, dissolve like paper, skin and strands of white hair withered and charred, becoming smelly ash in seconds.

Satan simply stared into the fire, satisfied with what has occurred thus far. The paladin was dead and Rin was in his grasp. There were… a few setbacks, such as Rin remaining partially unawakened, and their inability to snatch up the Kurikara before time was up. The boy had refused to obey Satan's commands, merely clutching the thing uselessly until it was discarded. He showed a particularly fiery defiance of him, though that was not _entirely_ unexpected. Either way, Satan would curb his rebellious tendencies.

He has no need for such a thing.

The demon king sighs, rolling his shoulders in a sort of "what can you do?" motion, before signaling to one of his servants to go collect the ash and dispose of it.

"I don't care what you do with it, but do not dump the ashes here." He orders, the servant nodding furiously before scampering off to do his bidding. Then, Satan snapped his fingers, commanding another servant to retrieve one of the torturers.

The demon that's lead into the room is like any of the other torturers, hulking, dumb, and blood-thirsty. It was all they'd needed to be, and their positions suited both Satan and themselves just fine. They thrived on causing pain and bloodshed, after all, demons of fire and wrath, caring not for who allowed them to inflict pain - so long as they did.

Other than a cursory glance, Satan didn't look at the demon. Instead, he curtly gave his orders, looking bemusedly into his swirling goblet. "In the back chambers, there's a half-demon. Break him. I don't care how you do it, as long as none of the physical injuries are permanent."

Satan figures that a nice stay in the chambers will make the boy nice and malleable. He didn't need a mentally healthy vessel, per se, only a _physically_ healthy one.

It's not as if he'd need the mind at all.

* * *

Whether he was alone in the cell for an hour or a day, Rin wasn't sure, only that the quiet grated on his ears and evoked a sense of paranoia, every squeak of his worn sneakers causing him to startle violently. His crying had quieted down a while before, leaving Rin feeling drained and empty.

The door, which had previously seemed like it'd never open again, was hauled open by one of the bigger demons Rin had seen earlier. Rin jolted, shoulders tensing, but instead of lashing out, he only curled tighter in on himself.

Instead, Rin only bared his teeth, rage pouring forth through his tongue, not his fists. He didn't have enough energy for that, exhausted in the wake of his capture. "Bastards!" Rin curses, "What'd you do with my old man?! Give him back and let me go - you better not've hurt him or I'll beat the hell outta ya!"

The hulking demon only steps further into the chamber, looking down at him with blank eyes, ones that looked at Rin and told him whether he lived or died did not matter, that he was nothing and never would be. The voice of the thing reflected this, voice level and monotone as the demon pronounced his threat. "Your defiance must be curbed. Under the orders of Satan, he who is of greatest Sin, we must make it so. Are you done resisting?"

"Fuck no, you and that _bastard_ can go to hell!" Rin howls, his hackles rising as he gnashes his teeth.

The demon grunts, gripping the chain whip in both of its hands. "So be it."

* * *

And so begins a long, arduous journey…!

I'm finally beginning to implement those revisions I was talking about, starting with Asters and my old one-shots. This is the revised version of chapter one (Feb 2019).

Anyway, thank you for reading, I hope the rest finds you well.


	2. Not All Who Protect

Title: Asters  
Chapter: 2/?  
Fandom: Blue Exorcist

Pairings: N/A, gen.

Summary: In which Rin doesn't escape that Gehenna Gate.

* * *

As you can probably tell from the chapter previous, Rin's having a very bad time of it. I hope I was able to impress upon all of you that Satan is a bastard, and that aspect is not changing lol. The asshole is selfish and lacking even an ounce of empathy for others. Y'know, just as you'd expect of the king of hell.

Luckily enough, however, the stars are beginning to align, setting off a chain of events that might just benefit everyone - except Satan, of course, because fuck that guy.

Okay so, content warnings for: Heavily implied torture, aftermath of said implied torture, depictions of depression, implied suicide ideation, and the Literal Dungeon Rin is currently residing in.

* * *

Rin crashes to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, groaning as the pain ricochets through his bones, pinging wounds fresh and aged alike. His voice is gritty and hoarse, vocal chords strained from screaming for so long. Despite the awkward, sprawled position he's in, Rin doesn't even doesn't attempt to get up. He only lays there, slumped over and heaving, eyes glassy from the pain even as some part of him quakes with relief.

The door to his cell slams shut, leaving him alone to grapple with his pain. He wasn't sure how long it'd been since he'd first been thrown into what he now knows is an authentic medieval dungeon - the pain had really warped his sense of time, which hadn't been very accurate in the first place - but he knew that the time between each "session" was short enough that wounds he received from the previous session hadn't completely healed. Time seemed to slow and stretch out, becoming impossible to gauge - leaving him unanchored, unable to parse what was a second and what was an hour. From when he had been dragged through the castle, like a captured war prisoner being paraded through the streets, to when he'd been thrown in this cell… just how long had it been,exactly?

It seemed, to Rin, that his previous life was now worlds away, lost and aged. And yet, simultaneously, seemed as if no time had passed at all since he was made to undergo a special kind of hell, as if it had only been a moment since he'd been prowling the streets of his hometown, searching for a job he knew he couldn't keep.

' _I wonder if Yukio is okay,'_ Rin wonders blearily, not for the first time, trying to blink the gunk out of his dry, tear-crusted eyes.

The first couple sessions, he could do nothing but cry. Tears gushed from his eye sockets like a fountain, mirroring the excruciating pain his body was experiencing. Eventually, however, Rin found that the nearly bottomless well of tears began to dry up, and as time crawled forward, session to session, tears spouted forth less and less.

Rin never did stop screaming, though. Even when his voice gave out his jaw stayed pried open, turned up and screaming and screaming and _screaming,_ even if no sound left his bloodied lips. At first, his goal was to find a way to strike back, to deal with the torture _temporarily_ , in hopes of a swift escape.

Now, he could barely keep his head above the water, and it was all he could do to simply _endure_ the pain, attempting to suffer through it all without drowning. He was barely holding on, desperately try to stop himself from fracturing into a thousand tiny pieces.

...Did Yukio hold a funeral for him? For Shiro? Surely he did, it wouldn't make sense for Yukio not to want to honor their dad. Was it held yesterday? Today? Two weeks or two months ago?

Rin's not sure, but thinking too far into his imminent future makes him want to scream more than ever, to dig his fists into his hair and yank, to claw up his arms and shiver in revulsion. (They look more like a demon's now, pointed and sharp, a horrible fate for a horrible demon, one who couldn't even pass for a human even when he looked like one.)

It hurt. Everything hurt so bad.

Rin wants _out_ , wants to go home, wants to wake up from this horrible fucking nightmare - but the chains that bind him to the dingy, fluid-covered floor clink maliciously, reminding him that, somehow, all of this is real, it's not just some fucked up dream and there's no way anyone is coming to save him - no way to wake up.

Rin is filthy. There's blood matting his hair, flaky and tangled, and Rin's mouth tastes of tooth fuzz and copper - it's been who knows how long since he's seen hot water or a toothbrush. His bruises ache, he's bleeding and scaped. He's sure he looks absolutely disgusting. He _feels_ disgusting.

Rin is… tired. There doesn't seem to be any escape, any reprieve from hell, because when the _torturers_ leave they leave him with his own thoughts and despair. It's a different kind of agony, one that doesn't hurt, exactly, but spins Rin's mind in dizzying circles, instilling a permanent sense of paranoia in him, and driving him to doubt even his own eyes.

He just wants it all to stop. Rin wants to rest - to _die_ , if that's what it takes - a more desperate part of his mind screeches. (A part that howls louder and louder, gets larger and larger every moment he's stuck in this cell.)

 _Anything_ other than giving into Satan's desires.

He'd die just to make it all go away, to halt the pain that rattles his lungs and brands its fingerprints into his bones. Make the tearing _burning fire-ants_ sensation in his gut cease.

The door opens again, and Rin, futilely, struggles.

He is given a choice, and when he whispers " _fuck you"_ , the pain resumes.

* * *

Rin doesn't struggle anymore. He quietly accepts whatever scraps of food - and he uses that term loosely - are given to him and scarfs them down, trying everstill not to give in.

He shields the fracturing, broken pieces of himself from the torturers, hoping they are too dumb to see how his resolve flakes and cracks from session to session.

Rin just hopes for death, even as he's forced to eat, even as his body claws at him in desperation, urging, forcing, begging him to go on _just a little while longer-_

Then, sometime between sessions, something changes. Rin knows only a little about the place he's being held in, but it's enough. Learning everything about the dungeons he can get his temporarily de-nailed, grimy hands on is the only alternative to drowning in the suffocating quiet of the cell and the beating, swirling drum of his mind.

What Rin knows is this:

He will receive food no matter what. After how many sessions, he isn't sure (and, oh, how it pains him to measure time that way, but there is nothing else to mark it by), but he does know that it's always after Rin's healing rate slows down exponentially, and Rin unwittingly slips into unconsciousness, unable to resist the pull of the quiet void, giving into temptation and ceasing to exist for a little while. His meals are meager, only a cut of bread and a weird looking meat substance.

(He gets water when they dump it on him. Rin never receives a drink with his meals.)

The screams he can hear faintly, through thick stone walls, never stop. It's never the same person (demon?), but everyone screams the same way, even if their individual voices are different.

 _(Do the others hear Rin the same way? Some distant voice, a part of the ever present chorus of agony and despair?)_

They don't clean the equipment. The chains on Rin's wrists and ankles were already bloody when they were attached, and so were their metal rods when they beat him with them.

Finally, there are the guards, different from those who torture him. Whereas the torturers- well, _torture_ him, the guards bring food. They listen to Rin's screams from where they're positioned outside of his cell door, silent and (probably) apathetic.

Rin's not sure how many guards there are, exactly, but he knows there's at _least_ four.

It's the guards who break routine. Well - one guard, but still. For one, Rin's being given food while he's conscious, fully aware of what he's being given. It's clear he's awake, lying on the floor and rattling his chains as he blinks up at the ceiling. It breaks the pattern, because even his healing rate (rapid, encroaching, _unnatural_ ) is up to par in sealing up lacerations and bruises.

Secondly, the guard attempts to _speak_ to him, even as it slides the meal tray through a compartment at the base of the door. The voice startles him quite badly - Rin no longer used to hearing voices that aren't the robotic, repetitive exchange that has been his sole source of verbal conversation lately. The conversation is simple. First, a monotone, "Are you done resisting yet? Satan grows impatient with your defiance." Then, he fires back with a solid "fuck you", and then the conversation dies, and Rin's screams pick up.

This time, the voice is higher pitched, less monotone and containing more emotion. It sounds… almost human, but alien, somehow, producing a slight gurgle unknown to human vocal chords.

It's actually kind of creepy, in his opinion, but he finds himself perking up at the sound anyway, lifting his tired head from where it was resting against the floor.

"Psst." The guard hisses, hushed. "Hey, you've got Satan's blue flames, right?"

Rin opens his mouth to reply, but it's like he's got cobwebs clogging his throat, so he's only sent into a fierce coughing fit the moment he inhales. Rin finds himself flushing, but hacks and wheezes until he can find the ability to breathe again, the action like razor blades against the soft flesh of his throat.

"Who are you? And what's that got to do with anything?" Rin grits, voice hoarse and his eyes peering at the tray warily.

"Doesn't matter. Do you have the blue flames or not?" The guard says, ignoring his questions entirely.

Rin groans, voice choppy and thin. "Yeah, sure. I got 'em. What do you want?"

He hears the guard breathe in deeply, before punching out stale air and ringing words in one go, "I wanna make a deal."

Rin's jaw falls open, ready to give the guard a piece of his mind, Shiro's warnings of " _Never make deals with devils!"_ blaring through his mind, but something stops him. The teen's teeth click together as forces his jaw to clamp shut.

' _It doesn't really matter now, does it?'_ Rin thinks, ' _I'm a demon, and even if I weren't... what do I really have to lose? I'm damned either way.'_ The boy scrunches his nose and unhinges his jaw once more, and this time, instead of a raging retort, Rin finds himself urging the conversation further.

"Eh? A deal? What for? I dunno what you think I can do for you, buddy, but I'm kinda tied up here!"

"Yes, I know that!" But, just - listen okay? Just hear me out."

Rin rolls his eyes, even though the guard couldn't possibly see it. "Fine." Rin says, simply.

God, he feels a bit like Yukio, right now. What next, declare his aspirations to become a doctor and don some glasses?

"Okay, okay. So, I want outta this place. It sucks. I hate it here and I wanna _leave_. Makes sense, right? And, I'll bet you hate it here too, right? _Right._ So, let's make a deal. I've already got a plan in mind, but I'll need your help to make it happen."

Rin… couldn't say he was expecting that. He didn't exactly know what he was expecting, but it wasn't that one of the castle's guards wanted to flee this wretched place, too. He'd been under the impression that most of them were either braindead or brainwashed, so he hadn't pinned any of his hopes on hell's inhabitants.

Rin guesses that even hell has its rebels.

"Alright, I'll bite. What d'ya got in mind?"

The guard hisses in success, sounding nearly gleeful, before continuing to pitch his idea. "Both of us? We're gonna make a break for it. Word 'round the castle says you're from Assiah, and that's where I wanna go. Hell knows I've had enough of the Gehenna experience to last a millenia! I mean, you help me and I help you, right? And don't worry, you won't be stuck with me forever, we'll split ways when we get to Assiah. After all, who _doesn't_ want to make it there? Ah - I'm getting side-tracked, but I digress. To do all this you're gonna need to act the part, okay?"

"What do you mean?" Rin asks, confused. He's on board with the whole "bust out hell" thing, but he's not really sure what acting's got to do with it.

"You're in the dungeons becos' Satan wants you nice and malleable for 'im. The dude's got a lot of power, but you've got what he doesn't: the ability to exist in Assiah. It's common knowledge that the old fucker can't really exist there. Plus, you've got the blue flames, so you're strong enough to hold the fucker without burnin'! So, in order to get out, you've first gotta get out of the dungeons, an' the only way I can see that happenin' is if you act for a bit. I mean, you've gotta play to Satan's whims."

" _Hell no!"_ Rin barks. He'd _never_ give in to that bastard, he swore it!

"Quiet down!" The guard gurgles, shushing him. "Not literally - just for now, got it? Just until I've got everything ready. And plus, at least you'll be outta this dump, eh? It's not so bad, a little goes a long way, y'know."

Rin struggles with his indecision for a moment, torn between refusing to even act like he was giving in and the desperation pushing him to snatch up any opportunity to escape this place. In the end, he knows what the answer has to be.

Rin never really had any pride, anyway.

"Fine." Rin growls, reluctant.

"Glad to have you on board, partner!" The guard pauses. "Ah - we've gotta make a blood pact, before anythin' else. Insurance for both of us. But! After that, we'll be well on our way to freedom!"

"Blood pact?" Rin questions, voice cutting out in the middle. He's almost at his speech limit.

"Yeah, blood pact. You're a halfie, right? It makes sense that you don't know. Blood pacts make sure both of us can't weasel our way out the deal. The blood part of it binds us to our words, basically."

"Oh." Rin says, intelligently. "That's fuckin' gross."

The guard scoffs, flippant. "Bah, who cares. Blood is blood, Gehenna is Gehenna, and Satan is Satan. Worse things out there than a little bit of blood."

"I guess." Rin shrugs, nonplussed. "So what do we gotta do, anyway?"

The guard, who's held the food compartment open to speak to him, sticks a greyish-blue hand under the door. It looks human enough, aside from the coloring.

There's the puss-green blood, too. "Grab my hand." The guard commands, sounding extremely pleased with itself.

It could be lying. It could trap Rin into doing whatever it wants.

Ah, to _hell_ with it! He could deal with any setbacks once he blew this joint.

He tugs on the chains biting into his wrists, stretching his limp arms out as far as he could go. With shaking, nailless fingers, Rin clasps the guard's cold hand. He figures the blood already on them is enough.

The guard jolts. "Whoa, buddy. You're more fucked up than I thought you'd be."

"Now what?" Rin presses on, bulldozing past the comment.

"Uh- basically we just say our deal and tack on 'I bind my words with blood: it is a promise.' at the end."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"No funny mumbo-jumbo? No latin?"

"Nope. Kinda a lower demon's pact, and pacts're never all that complicated."

"Just the way I like it."

There's some shuffling on the other end of the door, and when the guard speaks again its voice is somewhat hurried. "Okay - we've gotta hurry up. I'm running out of time, and I'll have to get back to my post soon- otherwise, I'm dead meat. Repeat after me: you and I conspire to break our chains, we forge a pact in blood so that we may escape Gehenna and enter Assiah, where our pact will nullify and we will part ways. I bind my words with blood: it is a promise."

He inhales. ' _Here goes nothing!'_ Rin thinks, even as his mouth opens to repeat the words in a whispered voice. __

"You and I conspire to break our chains, we forge a pact in blood so that we may escape Gehenna and enter Assiah, where our pact will nullify and we will part ways. I bind my words with blood: it is a promise."

There's a click, somewhere deep inside of him, and by the crow of the guard, Rin knows the pact forging was successful.

* * *

It takes a few more rushed minutes before Rin knows what part, exactly, he's going to play in this plan. Once Rin does know, however, the teen dives straight in. Headfirst. Without checking to see how deep it is.

As usual.

The next time the cell door opens, he doesn't curse and spit and struggle. He simply grinds his teeth together and jocks his jaw, closes his eyes, and forces himself to go completely limp. It grates on Rin to hold back the profanity lingering on the tip of his tongue, the curses and shouted insults towards the very _idea_ of Satan, but he manages. _Somehow_. They still hurt him and his limbs still _burn hurt tear_ \- but it's enough. The session does not seem to last an eternity for once, and the torturers cut the time short, leaving him to bleed and heal quicker than they ever had before.

The guard slips Rin's food tray under the door, and weakly, Rin grins, giving his fellow conspirator a shaky thumbs up, even with his limbs as boneless and weakened with pain as they were, mind and soul nearly delirious under the bombardment of it.

Then, when the cell door slides open once again, and the torturer steps through it, it asks the question.

"You're done now, aren't you?" it says simply.

' _No, I'm not, you bastards.'_ Rin's very soul snarls, ' _I'll never be done - and you fuckers will never see it coming.'_

Despite the determination lit in the depths of his heart, he says nothing, squeezing his eyes shut and angling his head away from the other demon. Rin knows the question isn't exactly rhetorical, but he is _really bad_ at lying: one word from him and the gig is up.

The hulking demon slams its paw-like foot into his ribs, knocking the breath from his lungs. Pain blooms in his side and he chokes, his body curling in on itself.

"Are you done now?" the torturer says again, as if it hadn't just brutally attacked him.

He wheezes, jerkily nodding his head instead of forcing out even a single word. Rin is angry, so angry, rage and terror curl and cling at his insides, tear at the corners of his mind and attempt to wrestle control from him, to take over and make the world _burn for what it's done-_ bashing at the insides of his skull, frothing and raging and so consumed with bloodlust that it wants everything to simply _die._ He wants to kill Satan and everyone else he's so enraged, then _leave leave leave_ and go _home_ , and never leave home again. _Ever._

Rin keeps his eyes firmly shut, waiting for things to begin anew at any moment. The apprehension leaves his muscles sore from the tension, his limbs violently twitching. But, weirdly enough, no pain descends on him. Nothing burns, no metal sinks into his flesh, no tools meant to maim him touch his skin. There's a heavy shuffling above him, and the torturer leaves the room, without fanfare, silent.

The door shuts behind the demon with a slam.

Rin exhales.

And then- then it's like he can't breathe as well as before, breath shallow and entirely too quick. Rin gasps and curls up more fully, flinching at the slither of heavy chains as he brings his hand up to knot his fingers into his ratty undershirt, torn and bloody and filthy. The tears he'd thought gone welled up, pricking the corners of his eyes and stinging his battered skin as they slid down his cheeks, escaping in small but fierce bouts as he trembles and shudders, choking and gasping for air.

When Rin gains control of his body, his breathing finally evening out and his trembles slowing, a spark of sheer _hope_ ignites in his chest, a rush of energy that shoots through his entire body. The sensation seems to jolt his previously deadened senses into action, like a network coming back online with a pulse of electricity. Rin anger, his fear, the vicious amalgamation of horror and despair falls away, leaving him with a blooming feeling of anticipation. A light, flickering and hesitant, has sprung up, and suddenly there's an end to the tunnel. For the first time in… quite a while, he feels like options are opening up for him, and that all he has to do to realize them is take a single step forward. After all, with the first step done, Rin is already one step closer to freedom.

Rin wants it so bad he can nearly _taste_ it, has a full-length film reel looping through his mind at the very thought of it, projected across the span of his mind. Wisps of thought, of escape and freedom, and then _Home_ sweep Rin's exhausted soul into its grasp, and the spark in his chest expands outwards as he thinks of going _Home_ , of finding _Yukio_ and everything being, well, not quite alright - but, certainly _better_.

The tears that gush from his eyes are not ones of anguish, of agony and gripping distress, but of joy- of hope. Delighted in his newfound sense of accomplishment, Rin grins wide, eyes scrunching under the force of his stretched smile.

Rin lets go, then, and promptly slips into unconsciousness. He's exhausted from the recent confrontation, from the emotional rollercoaster he's endured. It's no surprise that he welcomes the silence, the quiet, with open arms.

* * *

(Revised March 2019)

Rin needs a nap. It's not a fun nap, napping in a mental abyss, but it's better than nothing! Anyway, I'm wondering if that guard is really trustworthy… it could totally be a trap! Demons are cunning, even if they do sound like some friendly southern jock.

Let me know what you thought, I read and treasure every comment!

Thank you for reading!


	3. The Meaning of Vacancy

Title: Asters  
Chapter: 3/?  
Fandom: Blue Exorcist

Pairings: N/A, gen.

Summary: In which Rin doesn't escape that Gehenna Gate.

* * *

:0! A plan has blossomed, with Magical Legal Bindings attached! Rin is having a not-so-great time, but hey, at least he's leaving the cell, right? Right?

* * *

Unconsciousness is a blessing, in a weird way. Within it, reality dissolves, all sense of awareness or vigilance blanketed in a warm absence of anything. Not even a sense of "self" exists within this state. It is warm - but it is not. The vestiges of negative emotion dissipate as warmth washes over him, leaving him with a vague sense of tranquility and contentment - even if his environment is nothing but a cold, blood-soaked cell, where he's been subjected to anguish and agony and yawning despair as he stews in boredom and self-loathing. Slumber - or unconsciousness, at this point, they may as well be the same thing - grants Rin a feeling of serenity, even if only for a little while.

In his bubble, his mind travels back, unraveling as memories splay out before him, neurons unfurling and branching out as they reveal emotions and times past.

Unfortunately, dreams too must end. Unconsciousness gives way to reality, the "self" slotting neatly back into place as that warmth is stolen from him; waking him from his slumber panicked that _something_ has been done to his body. The initial burst of fear is probably the worst part if it: when his eyes burst wide open and his nerves splinter, when adrenaline and fear race through him, cloying fear coursing through his veins like cars on a race track as he runs frantic hands across his torso and face, fearing the worst - that he'll find those imagined alterations _real_ , himself rearranged and having to live with the new additions, the broken pieces.

Even when he finds nothing but new whip scars and crusted, grimy cuts, his heart pounds in his chest vision streaking as he attempts to get ahold of himself; other terrors bubble up in his mind, nagging and tearing at his brain.

The odd, primal fear of death, of being overtaken by his wounds and dying, fear that he'll be possessed in his sleep, of losing his sense of being amidst the pain and fear that lurks behind every mental corner, fear of starvation, of looming guards and blue flames.

Yes, waking up is usually the worst part of it. This time, however, was different - a break in the agonizing cycle of terror as his brain twists itself inside out.

For once, his eyes do not shoot open, clouded with terror. Instead, it's a long, slow process, where Rin finds himself reminded of the days _before_ , before Satan. The times when Rin had no belief in magic or religion and thought his father was just some crazy religious zealot. The days when he would wake up burrowed in his covers in the quaint room he shared with Yukio, even though his little brother would bug him about the times he slept in. The times when life was lazy, serene, and comfortable.

When he was safe.

It's a strange feeling.

Rin is vaguely aware that he's no longer lying on grimy, cracked flooring. His nerves come back online and the tips of his fingertips detect something soft, something that's not slime and gritty rock. Fuzzy anxiety coils in his stomach, but all Rin does is turn over and bury his face into what is obviously a pillow, easily batting the sensation away. He dozes for a bit, shifting every so often to soak in more comfort when an all too familiar rattling catches his attention.

Metal chains.

Rin instinctively recoils, the clinking sound scraping at his ears as it ices his skin and turns his chained ankles to fragile glass, cold and delicate. The teen's eyes snap open, and he kicks his legs out, clumsily trying to shake the shackles off. It does nothing, and his breathing thins out, becoming fast and shallow as he vainly tries to free himself. The rattling closes in on him. Fearful, he swipes at the empty air, blindly attempting to stop the noise, _stop_ whatever was approaching him. His body curls in on itself slightly, bracing for an impact. His hands meet empty air, clawing through nothing but empty space.

The tips of his fingers brush up against soft, high-quality fabric, causing him to pause.

He forces himself to breathe in deeply, soothing rattled nerves. Rin draws his clawed hands up and hesitantly pats himself down. His eyelids stay squeezed shut, as they had been for the entirety of his freakout thus far. He finds only the odd textures of bloodless skin and soft clothing rather than mangled limbs or an extra appendage.

His anxiety eases, but just to make sure the rest of him is intact, Rin swipes his tongue over his teeth, relieved that there weren't any gaps or strange lumps. He very pointedly does not think about his sharpened canine teeth, annoyingly sharp and grimy they may be. Cautiously, slowly, hesitantly, Rin opens his eyes; almost expecting another demon to be in the room with him, lying in wait, waiting for him to wake up before striking.

Instead, his eyes find only bland, beige walls. They're devoid of any decorum, no blood stains or wall shackles to be found. Only a wide, boxed-in expanse greets him, simple and barren.

Despite how devoid of personality the space may be, Rin finds himself almost comforted by the color, huffing a small sigh of relief. He hauls himself into a sitting position, taking stock of his outfit. His clenched hands find white sheets, the fabric crumpling as he grips it tight. It's not too frivolous of dress, but it still invokes a sense of unease in him, picking at the clean black shirt with a slight downturn of chapped lips. Bright blue accents are sewn into the material in delicate, elaborate stitching. The thread, too, is an electric blue, commanding the attention of the eye, calling to it like a bright, flashing neon sign. It's eye-catching, but dignified in a way his regular attire isn't, almost pompous in its appearance.

It doesn't fit him, but before he can dwell on it too much, Rin realizes that his wounds had been tended to, blinking down at the white bandages that curl under his sleeves and wind up his arms. There are bandages coiled firmly around his neck, firm and unyielding, and when he inhales too deeply he can feel an extra layer of fabric constraining his chest - likely more bandages.

While he was unconscious, Rin had obviously been cleaned, dressed, and undergone some sort of medical treatment. Confused, mouth twisting and his brows furrowing, he wonders how - or more accurately, _when_ \- he'd been put in this room, and _why_ he'd was taken out of the cell.

He blinks, absently scratching his bandaged hand. Then, something clicks in his brain. His eyes widen as the memories rush back, a grin stretching his parched lips. He thinks of pain, of horror and resignation, of a pact and a helping hand, of mutual benefit and a precarious balancing act.

He was out of the cell.

Unbidden, tears spring to his eyes, and he wants to do nothing but laugh and laugh and _laugh_ , but it's not over yet, not even close. There are still chains around his ankles, he's still bound to Gehenna with only a very shaky plan of getting home giving him hope of escape. This was only the very first step, so he restrains jubilant laughter, swallows it down for when he's free again, out of the grip of Satan and hell. With some difficulty, the teen manages to distract himself by taking a glance at the rest of the room. The bed really _is_ the only piece of furniture in the room, he finds.

And, seeing no reason to stay in the - admittedly very comfortable - bed any longer, he gingerly peeling off the blankets covering his legs, the boy steps out of bed, the shackles on his ankles rattling as he does so. He has far more mobility than he did before, the thought of which sends a burst of euphoria down his spine, and he fully intends to enjoy the moment for as long as he can.

All things considered, his situation hasn't improved all that much, but it's leaps above where he was previously. There's a faint buzz of anxiety humming at the back of his mind, softly caressing his ears with paranoid thoughts and whispers reeking with the smell of fear. Waves of nausea course through his body, even as he tries to stay calm and focus. Rin grunts in irritation, his nub of a… tail? At least, that's what he thinks it is, flicks as if to mimic his growing agitation.

He physically shakes the paranoia out of his head, as allowing that fear to fester would only cause him to spiral, and Rin wanted to _enjoy_ his new cell for a little bit, thank you very much! However, as time ticks on and nothing happens, leaving him waiting for something to happen, for something to appear from deep from the depths of hell, the tenser he became. His muscles lock, tightening to a painful degree, and Rin starts to pace the perimeter of the room using his newfound energy, trying to see how far he could get from the bed before the chains pulled taut.

The chains clinging to his ankles seem to sprout from somewhere deep under the bed. Rin attempts to lift up the bed and see, straining and grunting due to the exertion on atrophied muscles. He finds that the frame of the bed has been bolted to the floor, and not even _his_ freakish strength is able to tear it from its bindings. The length of the chains span from under the bed to a couple meters from the door, making them long enough that he can move relatively freely within most of the room, but not enough to actually reach the door. It's a big, thick chunk of polished wood, simple but sleek, but the hinges are rusty. That means, if he were able, he could potentially use the door to bludgeon the chains into coming off, allowing him to walk right out. Unfortunately, Rin can't seem to reach the door handle no matter how he contorts, causing him to sigh in disappointment. It was a far-fetched idea, but he'd held out some hope. Rin mentally curses his captors.

Eventually, however, he begins to tire, the sharp yank of clinking chains when he pulls them too tight a continuous reminder of his position. Rin groans, massaging his sore calves, before quickly retreating back into the bed. He takes a moment to revel in just how soft the material is and then flops onto his back, limbs splayed out. He lays like that for a few moments, and then his fingers begin to drum against the fabric of the bed, nails scratching at the sheets. He peers into up at the ceiling, expression bored and slightly irritated, and hopes it, somehow, provides him entertainment.

With no more torture sessions he could use to count the passing of time, he ends up losing all sense of it, with seconds, hours, minutes, and days ticking by at a pace he can't quite pin down. He waits for something to happen and disrupt the warping of time, anxiety making his skin crawl all the while.

Rin waits. The ceiling stays the same, no matter how hard he wills it into collapsing in on itself, opening up an escape, or a portal to another land. Rin grunts grumpily, thrashing slightly in his impatience. He's about to throw himself to his feet and use sharpened nails to draw on the walls ' _Ha! That'll show 'em!'_ he thinks, even though he knows it's both petty and pointless, when the cell door swings open. ' _Can this even be considered a cell?'_ he wonders, distantly.

Rin flinches slightly, whipping around with his heart in his throat. Instinctively, he shuffles backward, scooting across the bed until his back pressed tightly against the wall.

The demon entering his room also pauses, if only for a moment. Its face shutters, an unreadable emotion flickering in its eyes before smoothing out, leaving behind a blank, placid demeanor. Rin is tempted to call out to it, ask " _what happens to me now?",_ so tempted that he can almost feel the words on the tip of his tongue, but something stops him. His lips twitch, but he forces himself to steady, keeping the words under his tongue. He's wary of this entity and aware that the demon may turn around and report his behavior to Satan if he does something strange - and that all their meager progress would be lost.

Rin doesn't know if he'd ever get another chance, after that.

Rin looks away and exhales, air rushing from his lungs as he forcefully presses it out. Then, he slowly sucks air back in through his nose, quietly, without even daring to look at the other demon in the room with him. It hovers passively, patiently, a little ways from the bed.

He ignores it, just for a moment or two, even if, somewhere deep down, it makes him feel kind of bad.

Rin _is_ a demon, right? That makes the thing similar to him in some way, and that means it is living, or at least sort of living, right? Right.

Once he's certain that he won't have a massive freakout, he clenches his jaw, scooping up the fumes of courage left inside of him and turns to face the demon by his bedside.

It stares at him, looking somewhere above his eyes. Its line of sight is close enough to Rin's eyes that if he weren't peering directly into the demons face, examining every inch of it for some sign of malicious intent, he wouldn't have even realized it was avoiding eye contact. Regardless of intent, Rin flinches violently, and upon realizing what he's just done, freezes on the spot. His lungs stutter, breath caught in his throat as his heart rate picks up. He stares and stares and _stares_ at the demon, and the demon stares back.

The tension between them grows heavier and heavier.

Rin swallows heavily, ready to speak past his heavy tongue in hopes of doing something to alleviate the palpable tension in the room, icy and unbearable, when the other demon abruptly breaks the stalemate between them. Rin grinds his teeth in trepidation, pupils dilating in fear.

This causes the demon to pause for a fraction of a second, before calmly - with a measure of movement that could be described as almost mechanical - encroaching, obviously bound to invade his personal space.

Tension coils in his shoulders making its way inward, and Rin rages at himself for reacting so much. He's supposed to act docile, malleable, like a doll with its strings cut - he's not supposed to _react_ so much.

Flinching and hunching and nearly glaring at what looks to be a servant is not malleable. He's really toeing the line, and if he gives himself away, Rin doesn't know if he'll survive.

Not this early in the game, anyway.

A part of him, buried deep, high-strung and tense and _hurt_ bristles as the demon reaches an amorphous arm out towards him. It wiggles and wavers, milky like a condensed cloud, but… sallow, somehow.

The tension in his shoulders ratchets up as the arm-like appendage grows extremely close, mere inches away from his skin, and then releases itself. The substance of the other demon's body touches his skin and instead of pain flaring and his flesh burning, it timidly guides him into tugging off his shirt.

Bewildered, he does so without a struggle. The touch is impersonal, light and almost slimy as it removes his old bandages, rust-colored stains and dried puss ripped from where it'd been stuck his healing skin. The old coverings are dropped to the floor, discarded until there is need to pick them up again. The room unsettles, causing his hair to flutter as a heavy breeze - and just where did _that_ come from? He was sure they were indoors - whips through it.

Rin nearly gawks, because before, where there had been nothing but empty space, is now a dented metal tray, grooves and notches and scratches marring its battered form. On the tray are several wooden bowls containing strange pastes and odd looking herbs? Or the equivalent of? At least, it _looks_ vaguely plant-like to him.

Sometimes, Rin feels like he's been thrown into a fucked up RPG. At one point, Rin had wished to be sucked into one of the arcade games he'd played, or some fantasy world his dad had told him about. He'd thought that, maybe, things would be _better._

As proven by the situation he's in now, things are _not_.

The ghostly demon scoops up a glob of paste from the bowl and plops it onto his skin. He shivers, the paste cool, nearly minty on his tender, abused skin. No matter how much his skin had hardened up since… _that_ night, Rin was still partly human, and plenty of damage could be dealt to him. _Especially_ since those attempting to hurt him were used to victims of a purely demonic nature. Weirdly enough, he'd yet to see any of those so-called "damned" spirits - only demons.

The demon servant deftly rubs the paste into his skin, and despite the light stinging of his cuts, a pleasant chill affects the area, relieving some of the aches he feels. The touch, he finds, is too kind.

Somehow, along the way, Rin had forgotten what touch without pain was like. Every time someone approached him his muscles bunched up involuntarily. He started to sweat, and his heart rate sped up. It was a constant tense and release, pointless anxiety washing over him time and again.

But _this_ touch, despite his tension, did not waver, did not kick and punch or lacerate his already shredded skin. It did not hurt, even if the paste sort of did.

It was mechanical, impersonal. There was no emotion shown in the demon servant's eyes.

It made him want to cry. This- _thing_ was the farthest thing from Yukio, it did not look like him, didn't talk like him - didn't speak at all - did not scold and laugh and did not call him brother.

And yet.

And yet, tears collected in Rin's eyes, droplets heavy on his eyelashes as the smell of strange, woody herbs filled his nostrils, along with the cloying mint of the paste. He sniffles a bit, ignoring the flash of confusion that bursts across hazy, three-pupiled eyes.

Instead, his mind latches onto the motions of his wounds being slowly cleaned, medicated, and rebandaged; it throws him into memories of Yukio, eyes unfocusing as his eyes snag on the white, stringy coverings.

For a moment, Rin isn't sure where he is. His mind whirrs as it tries to differentiate between his fractured memories of Yukio bandaging his fingers and forcing him to apply Neosporin and the demon servant tightening his bandages. Light scatters and refracts as he experiences the horrifying sensation of falling while stationary. It makes him want to vomit.

Until, that is, he's broken out of his memory-ridden stupor by a piece of bread being shoved in his face. He blinks a moment, feeling light-headed as he tries to readjust to reality.

His shirt has been placed back on him, bandages snug against his chest, firm but not too tight. The medicinal tray from before has magically disappeared (when did that happen?) and now there is a crudely carved wooden tray in its place.

Rin reluctantly takes his, wondering how there was no residue from the demon servant left behind. It should, logically, be soggy and unsafe to eat. But it appears unaffected, perfectly dry to the touch.

He does not eat it, instead merely lowering it into his lap and staring at it. The servant makes a hollow chiming sound, cautiously retrieving the bread from his limp hands and bringing it back up to his lips.

Rin inhales sharply, waits for a beat, and exhales, forcing the air from his lungs. He reaches up and grasps the bread with both hands.

A bite is taken. It's slightly stale and tastes like every other meal he's received in his time spent in the dungeons. He takes one more bite, and then another, continuing to eat until the bread is gone, only crumbs under dirtied, pointed fingernails remaining.

The demon servant picks up another wooden bowl and proceeds to shove that in his face, too.

Rin takes it, and the cycles of bite, chew, and swallow begins again.

* * *

Rin is nearly done gulping down his cup of water - which has a weird, coppery taste to it - when the heavy metal door is dragged open, scraping the floor as it does so.

He jerks towards the door, startled out of the calm, quiet bubble that had enveloped the room as he ate.

Wide, manic eyes and an unruly shock of white hair step inside, piercings and all. The horns are there, too.

Nausea bubbles up as his heart sinks to his stomach.

* * *

I don't have much to say about this chapter, other than that I don't like it. If you've read this chapter before 10/3/18, I'd recommend re-reading it. You see, I let a friend proofread this chapter without reading the past two, and... this chapter was absolutely mangled. The beginning was a mess as they'd messed with my styling, the word flow was choppy, some sentences simply had no end, certain phrases were contradictory, etc.

Either way, I've gone back and intensely re-edited the entire thing for clarity and some additional adjustments. It should be a LOT better now. If you're reading after 10/3 then you didn't have to struggle through That Hell, and good on you for that! I'm always in the same place: on my tumblr! Which is ekourege, by the way.


	4. A Martyr in the Making

Title: Asters  
Chapter: 4/?  
Fandom: Blue Exorcist

Pairings: N/A, gen.

Summary: In which Rin doesn't escape that Gehenna Gate.

* * *

Things get easier, but they also get harder, too. Just what does Satan want from Rin? Just who is this southern sounding motherfucker with grey hands?

* * *

Sour resentment bubbles up in his sternum, thrumming in agitation as Rin mentally gasps _. 'The possessed punk from before - the one who was shooting those pigeons! Asta-something. If it wasn't for him… none of this would've happened, I'm sure of it!'_

Astaroth ambled further into the room, hands tucked into his pockets. He seems casual, almost lackadaisical in his movements, but his words are tinted with more than a hint of mocking. "Are you surprised to see me, young master? When I heard that Lord Satan had finally broken you in and released you from the dungeons, I just _had_ to pay you a visit."

Fury flares up from within him, broiling and thrashing against the walls of his skull in a bid to make him lose control. With a heavy, enraged heart, Rin wants to lose himself to it, he really does. A primal part of him howls in displeasure at having to have restraint. If it were up to him, he'd have already clocked the guy in the face.

However, there are shackles on his feet and he's supposed to be… broken in, now. Weak and easy to control. Beating the shit out of one of Satan's servants, presumably, would not go down well. He'd be back in the dungeons before he could even blink.

So, nearly shaking with rage and a hint of suppressed fear, Rin says nothing, even looks down and away from the demon. His fingers twitch, and his nostrils flare, but he does nothing else.

He can't see Asta-something's warped face, but there's glee mixed into what is supposed to look like pity. "You know… it's no fun when you don't react, young master. You were so amusing, before. Ah, well, what is there to do? What Lord Satan decrees is law, regardless of how much fun it takes out of talking to you. You were so expressive the last time we met."

Head to the side, eyes down. Aren't the fibers on the bed sheets interesting? He hasn't had bedsheets for a long while.

"Really though, I do have a reason for coming here! Don't you want to hear about what's been happening on Assiah since you were gone, young master?"

Now that gets his attention, and Rin can't help but curl his fists into the sheets, shoulders tensing. His eyes flicker from the bed to Astaroth's toothy smile, full-blooded demon the picture of calm. Wide, manic eyes are bright, nearly shining. Rin quickly looks away, but he knows that Astaroth caught wind of his surprise.

"Ah, yes… I have easy access to Assiah in this body, and have seen many things! Truth be told, I am quite angry with you, young master. Setting the paladin on me when I was merely attempting to help you get to Gehenna… it's quite ungrateful, don't you think?" the demon is right by his bedside now, looming over him. Rin can only see part of him from the corner of his eye, but his close proximity has him coiled taut, body throbbing from the panic and adrenaline pumping through his veins.

He's cornered and everyone in the room knows it. "As angry as I am, young master, I wouldn't keep such an important thing as your brother's death from you, you know? That'd be demonic! And not what humans would call _polite_ , would it?"

The shallow rise and fall of his chest halts completely.

Rin sucks in a breath, blinking, and holds it. Counts to one, two, and counts from one again. Could he even continue to breathe? He didn't think it'd be possible ever again, what with the way he was _drowning_. His shaking strengthens, until he's shivering and quaking where he sits, reflexively hunching into himself. Rin curls up, attempting to make himself smaller, even as his eyes go wide and unfocused, misting faintly.

There's a demonic, false sigh, and the thing steps away from him, towards the door he can't reach. "Your anger was so much more entertaining, young master. I almost miss it. Well, that's all for now, since I'm still mad. I'll see you again soon, this time under Lord Satan's tutelage!" it remarks.

Before he even has time to begin processing that remark, the door creaks and groans as it opens, and then it's shut again, slamming heavily against the door frame and locking with a resounding click, finality reverberating through the room.

' _Yukio? Dead?'_ his mind quavers, even as a small curse slips from between shocked, parted lips. "Bastard…" he mumbles lowly. With that, a band-aid mended dam breaks, and Rin drowns in sorrow once again.

He hiccups, tears gnawing at his eyes spilling over to trickle down in his cheeks in fat, ugly drops. He hiccups again, chest stuttering, and he suddenly can't suck in enough air. His lung capacity is down to null, shorting out before he can take in enough air, which only further exacerbates his condition. Curled in on himself, Rins hands come to claw at his eyes, scraping at his eyelids and making the skin just below his eyes bleed. The tears don't stop, and will never stop - it feels like he's always crying - there's a hole burning its way into his chest, sharp and aching, guts chilled as they're exposed to the outside air, lungs and throat convulsing.

Rin chokes on snot and spit, and his skin flashes hot and icy cold at the same time. Goosebumps erupt from his flesh, cascading down his arms and pulling too-tight skin even tighter.

 _He can't breathe- but it doesn't even matter because Yukio is gone too-_

" _He can't be dead…!"_ Rin wails, legs kicking out. "Please, don't take Yukio from me, too!"

No one answers his cries, and Rin gouges his arms with his nails, trails of blood beading up from where he'd scratched and mutilated his arms.

If his entire family was dead, then…

What was there to do?

* * *

The servant demon is gone when he looks up. It felt like it took forever for him to calm down, and even then Rin was prone to slipping back into crying fits - luckily, that means he'd been left alone in his cell while he broke down.

Once the initial shock had worn off, the wheels of Rin's mind started to turn. ' _Demons lie.'_ was his first thought, ' _Dad had always said so, right? So Yukio could be still alive.'_

He continues to console himself like this, slowly easing himself into a more relaxed - but still quite tense - state. Until that is, a clingy, tar-like thought forces itself to the forefront of his brain, having obviously escaped the depths of his consciousness just to frighten him with a horrifying - pointless - possibility.

' _But what if he isn't?'_ it says, nearly sneering. ' _What if he's dead and gone and it's your fault? What if you're in denial?'_

The thought takes all that cobbled together hope and rips it to shreds before the glue holding it together can even dry. He tries to deny it, but Rin doesn't really _know_. Rin doesn't know what's happening to him, why he's even really here. He doesn't know anything past the chains on his feet and the thin - but no less soft - bed sheets, the empty room and the door just out of reach.

He's completely cut off from everything. ' _I'll have to ask that weird guard guy for news if… no, when he comes back.'_ Rin thinks, a bloodied hand settled firmly over his chest as if to keep his wildly beating heart from physically escaping his chest cavity.

Tears slip from the corner of his eyes, and he shoves the dark thought down deep, locks it far far away so that he doesn't have to think about it. Ever.

He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, Rin had to focus on surviving.

 _(He thinks of his baby brother, who cried at the slightest scrapes or the first mean word, of the nice kid who wants to be a doctor - dead.)_

And survival meant braving the agonizing, all-consuming boredom of being held captive. That's not to say he wasn't scared, he was constantly dealing with the faint thrum of anxiety, a constant wavelength of fearpain _why-_ but in the times where there was nothing to do but wait, fear took a back seat to the sheer lack of stimuli, of interesting things. Of something to _do._

Eventually, fear diluted into apathy and boredom, an arguably worse sensation than even torture, it seemed to him. Usually, these down periods were few and far between, with the exhaustion Rin suffered pulling him into the depths of unconsciousness, or chaining him so far into his mind that there was no room to feel bored when there was so much _pain_ to focus on.

So, like he usually did when there was nothing to do, Rin carefully (wincing and hissing as his wounds were jostled the entire time) shimmied back under the sheets, settling into the dip at the center of the mattress. He was buzzing with anxious energy, fingers shaking lightly, but he forced himself to still, head squished into the thin pillow provided for him. Eventually, he could feel himself slipping into a light doze, lashes fluttering shut.

* * *

"Hey. Hey buddy, get up. I know you're in there, r'else I wouldn't be here!" a voice whispers harshly.

Rin grumbles, shifting from his position slightly, before a spark of pain jolts up his spine, causing him to freeze. ' _Annoying.'_ a distant part of him growls.

" _Hey!"_

He groans this time, scabbed wounds and tingly aches pulled and stretched as he hauls himself into an upward position. "What?" Rin hisses towards the door, forgetting himself for a moment as he carefully rubs at his eyes - which were quite sore. Ouch.

"C'mon, did ya forget? 'S me, the one you forged a pact with. Came ta deliver your meal n' give you a l'il update on the situation, y'know?"

Oh. The guard. Rin was quickly getting used to seeing only the ghostly servant who tended to his more severe wounds, so its appearance was a bit of a surprise.

"I didn't forget! I was sleepin'," he retorts somewhat haughtily. He gets a gravelly chuckle in reply.

"Yeah? Well I'm comin' in," the door opens heavily, grinding across the floor as it usually does, and the guard steps through the doorway, tray in hand. A face is finally attached to the hands he had seen previously, and Rin is unsurprised to note that it's demonic.

It's more human than he'd thought it'd be, though.

"Ya gonna stop starin' at me and take the tray? We don't exactly have a lot of time, y'know."

Rin blinks, abruptly coming back to reality, and takes the tray from rough, weathered hands. "Right…" he begins, tearing off a bit of bread and popping it into his mouth. "So? What's all happenin'?"

"Mm… well firstly, good job on gettin' outta the dungeons! Things are goin' accordin' to plan and all is well. Though, it'll take a while before everything's done… anyway, things aren't lookin' too good for ya."

' _No shit!'_ Rin thinks, even as a confused "Huh? Whaddya mean by that?" tumbles out of his mouth.

"Well, ya see, your release from the dungeons has been huge news around here, 'n not just for the castle grunts. Satan seems to be preparin' something, down in the sparring halls. I dunno what they're up to, but it probably doesn't bode well for ya."

Rin winces, anxiety kicking him in the teeth as soon as he hears the words "Satan" and "sparring". His palms begin to sweat, and he shakily wipes his hands on his bedsheets.

"H-huh… well… shit. Any way we can get the hell outta here before that asshole finishes… whatever the hell he's doin'?"

"I could give ya an answer to that if I knew how long it'd take. But I don't so… sorry. All I can say is this: probably not."

He curses, nails beginning to dig into the fabric.

"Well," the demon says awkwardly, cracked hands coming up to fiddle with his worn, faded hat, "Can't be any worse than the dungeons, right?"

Rin sends him a searing _look_. The guard winces.

"Yeah… you're right. Good luck to ya."

"Thanks, jerk."

* * *

Before, Rin was only worrying about when his boredom would end. (and Yukio. There was definitely Yukio to worry about.) There was nothing to do but lay around, sleep, and wonder when the next time a servant would appear. He counted the cracks in the ceiling, losing count and starting over so many times that he eventually just gave up, staring at it in dreary apathy. Then, he would either get up and pace around the room, or lie there and attempt to fall asleep. He was bored, and it dragged on and on with no end in sight.

Simply speaking, Rin was losing it.

Now, though, with nothing to do but sit in trepidation and wait for something to happen, Rin almost misses boredom. He should've punched that gargoyle-lookin' bastard in the face, this wasn't helpful at _all_. Sure, it was kinda nice to know what was ahead - even vaguely - especially if it meant he was gonna be in a world of hurt, but waiting for the other shoe to drop was absolute agony. It was hellish enough not to know what was gonna happen to him next until it did, but knowing that something was gonna happen and that there was nothing he could do stop it? That took hell to a whole 'nother level.

So, there was nothing to do but wait for the guillotine hanging over his head to drop, and there weren't even any clocks to keep the time.

Which meant it was aimless, pointless.

And he was right back at square one.

Circles, his mind was only going in circles.

His fingers drummed against the bedsheets, fingernails scraping lightly over the fabric. It was grounding in a way, giving him something to focus his attention on, rather than the blank walls and his unstable future. He could listen to the small scratch and pat sounds the tips of his fingers made and feel the fabric under his fingertips.

Rin frowns, a bit pensive. Maybe he could make a game out of this? That would relieve some of the boredom, surely.

Before he can sit down and make up the rules, the other shoe drops. One moment he's sitting cross-legged on the bed, frowning down at his hands as he begins to brainstorm, and the next the door is slamming open with guards (meaner, rougher, _bigger_ than the other guards, who were quite scrawny and twig-like in comparison) hauling him from his bed by his arms and legs, and a shiny new pair of shackles being slapped onto his hands and feet.

(Not really, they were as dirty and rusted as the rest. But, comparatively new. What _joy_.)

Not that he hadn't seen something like this coming, but still. It happened so fast.

God. He'd punch that guard when (if) Rin saw him next. That'd serve him right.

' _Good luck my ass!'_ Rin seethes as he's roughly jostled. He wants to kick and scream and bite with teeth that were too long to be human, but he knows that struggling would be counterproductive and likely just get him a blow to the head. It frays his pride, badly, and he grinds his teeth together as he does so, but he allows himself to go almost entirely limp.

Something feral and headstrong shrieks and froths at the mouth, coiled and seething and enraged. He can practically hear his resolve creak under the strain of it, bashing against his skull and attempt to wriggle free of his mental constraints on it.

He can't tell whether that's his demon side or just his pride. Maybe they're the same thing, now.

Maybe they never were different.

But- it doesn't matter. He's being dragged through the castle halls again, though this time it's marginally less humiliating. He's come to understand the castle's inhabitants (and the "world" outside of it) a little better, and he's slowly coming to realize some of them are much like him; loyal only through fear and Satan's blue flames, rather than any real sense of devotion.

He'd thought, at first, that the whole "I am Satan the Terrible, The Evil One" schtick would be an attractive leadership trait to demons, but it seemed that wasn't entirely the case.

Or maybe he was just around the weird ones. He'd spent most of his time in Gehenna deep in the dungeons, after all. He was bound to meet a few outcasts.

(Did he count among that list? He thinks he does.)

When he finally got to roam the castle a bit (and he would get there, eventually. Eventually he'd find a way out of the perpetual house arrest he'd been confined to) maybe he could get to know some of the castle's occupants, particularly the cooks. Because he'd been brought food (even if it wasn't very good) so there had to be some around here, righ-

Rin wheezes, mind halting in its tracks, because he's just been dropped to the floor. The guards release him without hesitation, allowing gravity (did this place even _need_ gravity?!) to do its part and send him slamming to the floor, sprawling out in an out-of-breath tangle of aching limbs.

Then, he feels a familiar heat.

(and his blood sings-)

Flames, the demonic kind.

Satan's flames. His desperate wheezing promptly cuts short, as Rin decides he no longer wants to take in oxygen.

"Sit up." Satan commands. It's simple, without any pomp or preamble. Not something he'd expect of Satan, who'd struck Rin as the type to go on and on and on, waxing poetic about his achievements and stroking his own ego as he did so.

Rin grinds his teeth even further and pushes himself to his knees. It takes a moment longer than he'd like, what with how he has to basically swing his torso up and hope to retain balance. He falters, and his knees shift and he uses a shackled hand to balance his head and torso from where he threatens to topple over again.

It takes a moment, but he does it. There's a tension in his shoulders as he sits at Satan's feet.

He makes sure to keep his long, scrambled bangs hanging down over his eyes, and his gaze pointed somewhere towards Satan's feet.

The picture of submission - a cowed animal. (The very picture of rage, a coiled python, a caged wolf. Pacing, pacing. Just biding its time.)

"Do you know why you've been brought before me, Rin?"

Rin flinches, involuntarily. His bones are suddenly rusted gears, his muscles clicking instead of moving. The effort to move his head is monumental, but he does it anyway, because he is more afraid of Satan than he is rusted bones.

He shakes his head, his hair sways.

' _Cowed. Cowed. Totally under Satan's control. Not gonna claw the bastard's face off! No-sir-ee.'_ Rin mentally affirms. His hands are shaking from where they're shackled behind his back, and he clenches them into fists.

His fists shake, too, but Satan speaks, unperturbed. "You will need to train your body, Rin. You are a woefully unprepared vessel, and I won't stand for having a weak vessel. Do you understand, Rin?"

His heart clenches at the thought of being possessed, of having his soul shoved so far down that it can never escape the caging darkness. His hand's quiver, his shackles clink. He nods.

"Good. You'll partake in sparring until I deem you fit enough. Then, and only then, will we retrieve your demon heart. We mustn't be hasty, though, my reign in Assiah will come soon enough, hm?"

Rin doesn't think he needs to nod, so he doesn't.

That was a mistake because there's a foot lashing out, bashing him in the face before he can blink. Rin gasps, falling awkwardly onto his back and straining his thigh muscles in a way that burns, and not the good stretch burn, but the "Burning, tearing, snapping!" burn.

"I said, we mustn't be hasty, hm?"

Blood gushes from Rin's nose, and he can feel the large bruise blooming along his right eye and the bridge of his nose. He nods.

He can see Satan's jagged, pleased grin from the corner of his eyes. Rin so badly wants to wipe the grin from his face. Preferably with his fists. "Good. Dismissed. Someone take him back."

He's being grabbed and lifted, jostled and dragged like a sack of particularly demonic potatoes, and suddenly he can see the floor again.

Blood drips from his nose.

"Oh, and Rin?" Satan's voice rings out. Rin looks up and accidentally meets Satan's eyes.

The demon king smiles at him, wide and full of teeth, with the kind of smile that nearly causes him to break out into hives, "Welcome home, son."

* * *

He's tossed back into his cell. They hadn't bothered to take off the shackles, or dump him onto his bed, merely tossing him far enough into the room that he couldn't reach the door.

His frustration leaks into his eyes, and with his ears still ringing, Rin cries into the floor.

(He didn't _want_ to be a demon's son, and this wasn't home.)

* * *

Part of me wants to make these chapters longer but the natural progression of this fic happens in short bursts and I would HATE to ruin the pacing of the plot by drawing out my chapters. The total word count will _definitely_ be rising, but not in like, huge leaps. It won't jump from like, 20k to 35k in one chapter, lol.

However, my outline for this is _long_ , so even if the chapters are short, there's a lot of them coming. I'm aiming to get this fic totally completed by next summer, but we'll see how that goes. If that works out, I'll probably start uploading chapters bi-monthly.

We Shall See.


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